Throughout the realm of the Incas the
Peruvians venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven and earth,
and ruler of the firmament, the god Ataguju. The legend was that from
him proceeded the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who descended to
the earth and there seduced the sister of certain Guachemines, rayless
ones, or Darklings, who then possessed it. For this crime they destroyed
him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her labor, giving
birth to two eggs. From these emerged the twin brothers, Apocatequil
and Piguerao. The former was the more powerful. By touching the corpse
of his mother he brought her to life, he drove off and slew the
Guachemines, and, directed by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from
the soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this reason they
adored him as their maker. He it was, they thought, who produced the
thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling; and the
thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children.
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